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AN 



Ethnologists View of History. 



AN ADDRESS 



BEFORE THE 



Annual Meeting of the New Jersey Historical Society, 

AT 

Trenton, New Jersey, January 28, 1896. 



DANIEL G. BRINTON, A.M., M.D., LL.D., D. Sc. 

Professor of American ARCH.€;oLOGy in the University of 

Pennsylvania and of General Ethnology at the 

Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA. 
1896. 



^\<- 






An Ethnologist's View of History. 



Mr. President : 

******* 

The intelligent thought of the world is ever advancing 
to a fuller appreciation of the worth of the past to the 
present and the future. Never before have associations, 
societies and journals devoted to historical studies been so 
numerous. All times and tribes are searched for memo- 
rials ; the remote corners of modern, medieval and an- 
cient periods are brought under scrutiny ; and going beyond 
these again, the semi-historic eras of tradition and the 
nebulous gleams from pre-historic milleniums are diligently 
scanned, that their uncertain story may be prefaced to that 
registered in "the syllables of recorded time." 

In this manner a vast mass of material is accumulating 
with which the historian has to deal. What now is the 
real nature of the task he sets before himself? What is 
the mission with which he is entrusted? 

To understand this task, to appreciate that mission, he 
must ask himself the broad questions : What is the aim of 
history? What are the purposes for which it should be 
studied and written? 

He will find no lack of answers to these inquiries, all 
offered with equal confidence, but singularly discrepant 
among themselves. His embarrassment will be that of 



selection between widely divergent views, each ably sup- 
ported by distinguished advocates. 

As I am going to add still another, not exactly like any 
already on the list, it may well be asked of me to show 
why one or other of those already current is not as good 
or better than my own. This requires me to pass in brief 
review the theories of historic methods, or, as it is properly 
termed, of the Philosophy of History, which are most pop- 
ular to-day. 

They may be classified under three leading opinions, as 
follows : 

T. History should be an accurate record of events, and 
nothing more ; an exact and disinterested statement of what 
has taken place, concealing nothing and coloring nothing, 
reciting incidents in their natural connections, without bias, 
prejudice, or didactic application of any kind. 

This is certainly a high ideal and an excellent model. 
For many, yes, for the majority of historical works, none 
better can be suggested. I place it first and name it as 
worthiest of all current theories of historical composition. 
But, I would submit to you, is a literary production answer- 
ing to this precept, really History? Is it anything more 
than a well-prepared annal or chronicle? Is it, in fact 
anything else than a compilation containing the materials 
of which real history should be composed? 

I consider that the mission of the historian, taken in its 
completest sense, is something much more, much higher, 
than the collection and narration of events, no matter how 
well this is done. The historian should be like the man 
of science, and group his facts under inductive systems so 
as to reach the general laws which connect and explain 
them. He should, still further, be like the artist, and en- 
deavor so to exhibit these connections under literary forms 
that they present to the reader the impression of a sym- 
metrical and organic unity, in which each part or event 



bears definite relations to all others. Collection and colla- 
tion are not enough. The historian must "work up his 
field notes," as the geologists say, so as to extract from his 
data all the useful results which they are capable of yield- 
ing- 

I am quite certain that in these objections I can count on 

the suffrages of most. For the majority of authors write 
history in a style widely different from that which I have 
been describing. They are distinctly teachers, though 
not at all in accord as to what they teach. They are gen- 
erally advocates, and with more or less openness maintain 
what I call the second theory of the aim of history, to wit : 

2. History should be a collection of evidence in favor of 
certain opmions. 

In this categor}^ are to be included all religious and poli- 
tical histories. Their pages are intended to show the deal- 
ings of God with man ; or the evidences of Christianity, or 
of one of its sects, Catholicism or Protestantism ; or the 
sure growth of republican or of monarchial institutions ; or 
the proof of a divine government of the world ; or the 
counter-proof that there is no such government ; and the 
like. 

You will find that most general histories may be placed 
in this class. Probably a man cannot himself have very 
strong convictions about politics or religion, and not let 
them be seen in his narrative of events where such ques- 
tions are prominently present. A few familiar instances 
will illustrate this. No one can take either Lingard's or 
Macauley's History of England as anything more than a 
plea for either writer's personal views. Gibbon's anti- 
Christian feeling is as perceptibly disabling to him in many 
passages as in the church historians is their search for 
" acts of Providence," and the hand of God in human af- 
fairs. 

All such histories suffer from fatal flaws. They are de- 



ductive instead of inductive ; they are a dcfensio sen tent i- 
arum instead of an invcstigatio veri; they assume the linal 
truth as known, and go not forth to seek it. They are 
therefore " teleologic," that is, they study the record of 
man as the demonstration of a problem the solution of 
which is already known. In this they are essentially 
" divinatory," claiming foreknowledge of the future ; and, 
as every ethnologist knows, divination belongs to a stad- 
ium of incomplete intellectual culture, one considerably 
short of the highest. As has been well said by Wilhelm 
von Humboldt, any teleologic theory "disturbs and falsi- 
fies the facts of history ; "^ and it has been acutely pointed 
out by the philosopher Hegel, that it contradicts the notion 
of progress and is no advance over the ancient tenet of a 
recurrent cycle. ^ 

I need not dilate upon these errors. They must be pat- 
ent to you. No matter how noble the conviction, how 
pure the purpose, there is something nobler and purer than 
it, and that is, unswerving devotion to rendering in history 
the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. 

I now turn to another opinion, that which teaches that — 

3. History should be a portraiture, more or less ex- 
tended, of the evolution of the human species. 

This is claimed to be the "scientific" view of history. 
It was tersely expressed by Alexander von Humboldt in 
i"he phrase: "The history of the world is the mere ex- 
pression of a predetermined, that is, fixed, evolution."^ 

It is that advocated by Auguste Comte, Draper and 

1 In his epochal essay "DieAufgabe des Geschichtschreibei-s." Ges- 
ammelte Werke, Bd. I., s. 13. It was republished with a discriminating 
introduction bj Professor Steinthal in Die SprachphtlosophiscJicu Wcrke 
Wilhelm von Hiimboldfs (Berlin, 1883). 

2 " Der Zweck-Begriiif bewirkt nur sich selbst, und ist am Ende was er 
im Anfange, in der Unspriinglichkeit, war." Encyclopddic dcr p/iiloso- 
phischen Wissenschaften. Theil, I., § 204. 

3 "Die Weltgeschichte ist der blosse Ausdruck einer vorbestimmten 
Entwicklung." (Quoted by Lord Acton.) 



Spencer, and a few years ago Prof. Gerland, of Strasburg, 
formulated its basic maxim in these words: "Man has 
developed from the brute through the action of purely me- 
chanical, therefore fixed, laws."^ 

The scientist of to-day who hesitates to subscribe to 
these maxims is liable to be regarded as of doubtful learn- 
ing or of debilitated intellect. I acknowledge that I am 
one such, and believe that I can show sound reasons for 
denying the assumption on which this view is based. 

It appears to me jvist as teleologic and divinatory as those 
I have previously named. It assumes Evolution as a law 
of the universe, whereas in natural science it is only a 
limited generalization, inapplicable to most series of natu- 
ral events, and therefore of uncertain continuance in any 
series. The optimism which it inculcates is insecure and 
belongs to deductive, not inductive, reasoning. The me- 
chanical theory on which it is based lacks proof, and is, I 
maintain, insufficient to explain motive, and, therefore, his- 
toric occurrences. The assumption that history is the 
record of a necessar}^ and uninterrupted evolution, progres- 
sing under ironclad mechanical laws, is a preconceived 
theory as detrimental to clear vision as are the preoccupa- 
tions of the theologian or the political partisan. 

Any definition of evolution which carries with it the 
justification of optimism is as erroneous in history, as it 
would be in biology to assert that all variations are bene- 
ficial. There is no more certainty that the human species 
will improve under the operation of physical laws than 
that any individual will ; there is far more evidence that 
it will not, as every species of the older geologic ages has 
succumbed to those laws, usually without leaving a repre- 
sentative. 

I am aware that I am here in opposition to the popular 

1 "Die Menschheit hat sich aus natiirlicher, tierischer Grundlage auf 
rein naturliche mechanische Weise entwickelt." Anthropolgtsckc Bei- 
trcige, s. 21. 



8 

as well as the scientific view. No commonplace is better 
received than that, "Eternal progress is the law of na- 
ture ;" though by what process eternal laws are discovered 
is imperfectly explained. 

Applied to history, a favorite dream of some of the most 
recent teachers is that the life of the species runs the same 
course as that of one of its members. Lord Acton, of Ox- 
ford, in a late lecture states that: "The development of 
society is like that of individual;"^ and Prof. Fellows, of 
the University of Chicago, advances the same opinion in 
the words, "Humanity as a whole developes like a 
child."- 

The error of this view was clearly pointed out some years 
ago by Dr. Tobler.'^ There has been no growth of hu- 
manity at large at all comparable to that of the individual. 
There are tribes to-day in the full stone age, and others 
in all stages of culture above it. The horizons of progress 
have been as local as those of geography. No solidarity 
of advancement exists in the species as a whole. Epochs 
and stadia of culture vary with race and climate. The 
much talked of "law of continuity" does not hold good 
either in national or intellectual growth. 

Such are the criticisms which may be urged against the 
historical methods now in vogue. What, you will ask, is 
offered in their stead? That which I offer is the view of 
the ethnologist. It is not so ambitious as some I have 
named. It does not deal in eternal laws, nor divine the 
distant future. The ethnologist does not profess to have 
been admitted into the counsels of the Almighty, nor to 
have caught in his grasp the secret purposes of the Uni- 
verse. He seeks the sufficient reason for known facts, and 

^A Lecture on the Study of History, p. i (London, 1895). 

2 See his article "The Relation of Anthropology to the Study of His- 
tory," in The America>i Journal of Soc/otoi^y, July, 1895. 

^Ludwig Tobler, in his article " Zur Philosophie der Geschichte," in 
the Zeitschrift fiir Vijlkerpsychologie^ Bd. XII., s. 195. 



is content with applying the knowledge he gains to present 
action. 

Before stating the view of the ethnologist, I must briefly 
describe what the science of Ethnology is. You will see 
at once how closely it is allied to history, and that the ex- 
planation of the one almost carries with it the prescription 
for the other. 

It begins with the acknowledged maxim that man is by 
nature a gregarious animal, a zoon folitikon, as Aristotle 
called him, living in society, and owing to society all those 
traits which it is the business of history, as distinguished 
from biology, to study. 

From this standpoint, all that the man is he owes to others ; 
and what the others are, they owe, in part, to him. To- 
gether, they make up the social unit, at first the family or 
clan, itself becoming part of a larger unit, a tribe, nation or 
people. The typical folk, or ethnos, is a social unit, the 
members of which are bound together by certain traits com- 
mon to all or most, which impart to them a prevailing char- 
acter, an organic unity, specific pecuHarities and general 
tendencies. 

You may inquire what these traits are to which I refer 
as making up ethnic character. The answer cannot be so 
precise as you would like. We are dealing with a natural 
phenomenon, and Nature, as Goethe once remarked, never 
makes groups, but only individuals. The group is a subjec- 
tive category of our own minds. It is, nevertheless, psy- 
chologically real, and capable of definition. 

The Ethnos must be defined, like a species of natural 
history, by a rehearsal of a series of its characteristics, not 
by one alone. The members of this series are numerous, 
and by no means of equal importance ; I shall mention the 
most prominent of them, and in the order in which I be- 
lieve they should be ranked for influence on national 
character. 



10 

First, I should rank Language. Not only is it the me- 
dium of intelligible intercourse, of thought-tranference, but 
thought itself is powerfully aided or impeded by the modes 
of its expression in sound. As " spoken language," in 
poetry and oratory, its might is recognized on all hands ; 
while in " written language," as literature, it works silently 
but with incalculable effect on the character of a people.^ 

Next to this I should place Government, understanding 
this word in its widest sense, as embracing the terms on 
which man agrees to live with his fellow man and with 
woman, family, therefore, as well as societ}^ ties. This 
includes the legal standards of duty, the rules of relation- 
ship and descent, the rights of property and the customs 
of commerce, the institutions of castes, classes and rulers, 
and those international relations on which depend war and 
peace. I need not enlarge on the profound impress which 
these exert on the traits of the people. - 

After these I should name Religion, though some bril- 
liant scholars, such as Schelling and Max Mliller,^ have 
claimed for it the first place as a formative influence on 
ethnic character. No one will deny the prominent rank it 
holds in the earlier stages of human culture. It is scarcely 
too much to say that most of the waking hours of the 
males of some tribes are taken up with religious ceremo- 

iQne of the most lucid of modern German philosophical writers sajs, 
" Without language, there could be no unity of mental life, no national 
life at all." Friedrich Paulsen, Liirodiiction to Philosophy, p. 193. 
(English translation, New York, 1S95.) I need scarcely recall to the 
student that this was the cardinal principle of the ethnological writings 
of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and that his most celebrated essay is entitled 
" Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren 
Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts." The 
thought is well and tersely put bj- Prof. Frank Granger — "Language is 
the instinctive expression of national spirit." (^The Worship of the Ro- 
mans^ p. 19, London, 1896.) 

2 "Law, in its positive forms, may be viewed as an instrument used to 
produce a certain kind of character." Frank Granger, ubi supra, p. 19. 

^ Lectures on the Science of Religion, p. 55. 



II 



nies. Religion is, however, essentially " divinatory," that 
is, its chief end and aim is toward the future, not the pres- 
ent, and therefore the impress it leaves on national charac- 
ter is far less permanent, much more ephemeral, than either 
government or language. This is constantly seen in daily 
life. Persons change their religion with facility, but ad- 
here resolutely to the laws which protect their property. 
The mighty empire of Rome secured ethnic unity to a de- 
gree never since equalled in parallel circumstances, and its 
plan was to tolerate all religions — as, indeed, do all enlight- 
ened states to-day — but to insist on the adoption of the 
Roman law, and, in official intercourse, the Latin language. 
I have not forgotten the converse example of the Jews, 
which some attribute to their religion ; but the Romany, 
who have no religion worth mentioning, have been just as 
tenacious of their traits under similar adverse circumstances. 

The Arts, those of Utility, such as potter}^, building, 
agriculture and the domestication of animals, and those of 
Pleasure, such as music, painting and sculpture, must come 
in for a full share of the ethnologist's attention. They 
represent, however, stadia of culture rather than national 
character. They influence the latter materially and are 
influenced by it, and different peoples have toward them 
widely different endowments ; but their action is generally 
indirect and unequally distributed throughout the social 
unit. 

These four fields. Language, Government, Religion 
and the Arts, are those which the ethnologist explores 
when he would render himself acquainted with a nation's 
character ; and now a few words about the methods of 
study he adopts, and the aims, near or remote, which he 
keeps in view. 

He first gathers his facts, from the best sources at his 
command, with the closest sifting he can give them, so as 
to exclude errors of observation or intentional bias. From 



12 

the facts he aims to discover on the above lines what are or 
were the regular characteristics of the people or peoples he 
is studying. The ethnic differences so revealed are to him 
what organic variations are to the biologist and morpholo- 
gist ; they indicate evolution or retrogression, and show an 
advance toward higher forms and wider powers, or toward 
increasing feebleness and decay. 

To understand them they must be studied in connection 
and causation. Hence, the method of the ethnologist be- 
comes that which in the natural sciences is called the " de- 
velopmental " method. It may be defined as the historic 
method where history is lacking. The biologist explains 
the present structure of an organ by tracing it back to 
simpler forms in lower animals until he reaches the germ 
from which it began. The ethnologist pursues the same 
course. He selects, let us say, a peculiar institution, such 
as caste, and when he loses the traces of its origin through 
failure of written records, he seeks for them in the survivals 
of unwritten folk-lore, or in similar forms in primitive con- 
ditions of culture. 

Here is where Archaeology renders him most efficient 
aid. By means of it he has been able to follow the trail 
of most of the arts and institutions of life back to a period 
when they were so simple and uncomplicated that they are 
quite transparent and intelligible. Later changes are to 
be analyzed and explained by the same procedure.^ 

This is the whole of the ethnologic method. It is open 
and easy when the facts are in our possession. There are 
no secret springs, no occult forces, in the historic develop- 
ment of culture. Whatever seems hidden or mysterious, 
is so only because our knowledge of the facts is imperfect. 
No magic and no miracle has aided man in his long con- 

' How different from the position of Voltaire, who, expressing, the 
general sentiment of his times, wrote, — "The history of barbarous na- 
tions has no more interest than that of bears and wolves !" 



13 

flict with the material forces around him. No ghost has 
come from the grave, no God from on high, to help 
him in the bitter struggle. What he has won is his own 
by the right of conquest, and he can apply to himself the 
words of the poet : 

" Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet, 
Heilig gluhend Herz?" [Goct/ie). 

Freed from fear we can now breathe easily, for we know 
that no Dais ex machina meddles with those serene and 
mighty forces whose adamantine grasp encloses all the 
phenomena of nature and of life. 

The ethnologist, however, has not completed his task 
when he has defined an cthiios, and explained its traits by 
following them to their sources. He has merely prepared 
himself for a more delicate and difficult part of his under- 
taking. 

It has been well said by one of the ablest ethnologists of 
this generation, the late Dr. Post, of Bremen, that "The 
facts of ethnology must ever be regarded as the expres- 
sions of the general consciousness of Humanity."^ The 
time has passed when real thinkers can be satisfied with 
the doctrines of the positive philosophers, who insisted 
that events and institutions must be explained solely from 
the phenomenal or objective world, that is, by other 
events. 

Sounder views prevail, both in ethnology and its history. 
" The history of man," says a German writer, " is neither 
a divine revelation, nor a process of nature ; it is first and 
above all, the work of man ;"' an opinion reiterated by Prof. 
Flint in his work on the philosophy of history in these 

1 Gyiindrinsder eth)iologischen Jttyispriidcnz, Bd. I., s. 5. (Leipzig, 1S94.) 

2 "Das Geschichte ist weder eine Offenbarung Gottes, noch ein Natur- 
process, sonderneben Menschenwerk." Tobler in the Zeitschrifi fiir Vol- 
kerpsychologic, Bd. XII., s. 201. 



H 

words : " History is essentiall}^ the record of the work and 
manifestation of human nature.'"^ In both sciences it is 
the essentially human which alone occupies us ; it is the 
life of man. 

Now men do not live in material things, but in mental 
states ; and solely as they affect these are the material 
things valuable or valueless. Religions, arts, laws, his- 
toric events, all have but one standard of appraisement, to 
wit, the degree to which they produce permanently benefi- 
cial mental states in the individuals influenced by them. 
All must agree to this, though they ma}^ differ widely as 
to what such a mental state may be ; whether one of plea- 
surable activity, or that of the Buddhist hermit who sinks 
into a trance by staring at his navel, or that of the Trappist 
monk whose occupations are the meditation of death and dig- 
ging his own grave. 

The ethnologist must make up his own mind about this, 
and with utmost care, for if his standard of merit and de- 
merit is erroneous, his results, however much he labors on 
them, will have no permanent value. There are means, 
if he chooses to use them, which will aid him here. 

He must endeavor to picture vividly to himself the men- 
tal condition which gave rise to special arts and institu- 
tions, or which these evolved in the people. He must as- 
certain whether they increased or diminished the joy of 
living, or stimulated the thirst for knowledge and the love of 
the true and the beautiful. He must cultivate the liveliness 
of imagination which will enable him to transport himself 
into the epoch and surroundings he is studying, and feel 
on himself, as it were, their peculiar influences. More 
than all, chief of all, he must have a broad, many-sided, 
tender sympathy with all things human, enabling him to 
appreciate the emotions and arguments of all parties and 
all peoples. 

^History of the Philosophy of History, p. 579. 



15 

Such complete comprehension and spiritual accord 
will not weaken, but will strengthen his clear perception 
of those standards by which all actions and institutions 
must ultimately be weighed and measured. There are 
such standards, and the really learned ethnologist will be 
the last to deny or overlook them. 

The saying of Goethe that "The most unnatural action 
is yet natural," is a noble suggestion of tolerance ; but 
human judgment can scarcely go to the length of Madame 
de Stael's opinion, when she claims that "To understand 
all actions is to pardon all." We must brush away the 
sophisms which insist that all standards are merely rela- 
tive, and that time and place alone decide on right and 
wrong. Were that so, not only all moralit}^ but all sci- 
ence and all knowledge were fluctuating as sand. But it 
is not so. The principles of Reason, Truth, Justice and 
Love have been, are, and ever will be the same. Time 
and place, race and culture, make no difference. When- 
ever a country is engaged in the diffusion of these immor- 
tal verities, whenever institutions are calculated to foster 
and extend them, that country, those institutions, take noble 
precedence over all others whose efforts are directed to 
lower aims. ^ 

Something else remains. When the ethnologist has ac- 
quired a competent knowledge of his facts, and deduced 
from them a clear conception of the mental states of the 
peoples he is studying, he has not finished his labors. In- 
stitutions and arts in some degree reflect the mental condi- 
tions of a people, in some degree bring them about ; but 

J There is nothing in this inconsistent with the principle laid down by 
Leek J : "The men of each age must be judged by the ideal of their own 
age and country, and not by the ideal of ourselves." — The Political Value 
of History^ p. 50, New York, 1892. The distinction is that between the 
relative standard, which we apply to motives and persons, and the absolute 
standard, which we apply to actions. The effects of the latter, for good 
or evil, are fixed, and independent of the motives which prompt them. 



i6 

the underlying source of both is something still more im- 
material and intangible, yet more potent, to wit, Ideas 
and Ideals. These are the primary impulses of conscious 
human endeavor, and it is vain to attempt to understand 
ethnology or to w^rite history without assigning their con- 
sideration the first place in the narration. 

I am anxious to avoid here any metaphysical obscurity. 
My assertion is, that the chief impulses of nations and 
peoples are abstract ideas and ideals, unreal and unrealiz- 
able ; and that it is in pursuit of these that the great as 
well as the small movements on the arena of national life 
and on the stage of history have taken place. 

You are doubtless aware that this is no new discovery of 
mine. Early in this century Wilhelm von Humboldt 
wrote : "The last and highest duty of the historian is to 
portray the effort of the Idea to attain realization in fact ;" 
and the most recent lecture on the philosophy of history 
which I have read, that by Lord Acton, contains this 
maxim : " Ideas which in religion and politics are truths, 
in history are living forces." 

I do claim that it is timely for me to repeat these doctrines 
and to urge them with vehemence, for they are generally 
repudiated by the prevailing schools of ethnology and his- 
tory in favor of the opinion that objective, mechanical in- 
fluences alone suffice to explain all the phenomena of 
human life. This I pronounce an inadequate and an un- 
scientific opinion. 

There is in living matter everywhere something which 
escapes the most exhaustive investigation, some subtle 
center of impulse, which lies beyond the domain of corre- 
lated energy, and which acts directively, without increas- 
ing or diminishing the total of that energy. Also in the 
transformations of organic forms, there are preparations 
and propulsions which no known doctrine of the mechan- 
ical, natural causes can interpret. We must accept the 



17 

presence of the same powers, and in a greater degree, in 
the life and the history of man.^ 

It may be objected that abstract ideas are far beyond the 
grasp of the uncuUivated intellect. The reply is, con- 
sciously to regard them as abstract, may be ; but they ex- 
ist and act for all that. All sane people think and talk ac- 
cording to certain abstract laws of grammar and logic ; 
and they act in similar unconsciousness of the abstractions 
which impel them. Moreover, the Idea is usually clothed 
in a concrete Ideal, a personification, which brings it home 
to the simplest mind. This was long ago pointed out by 
the observant Machiavelli in his statement that every re- 
form of a government or religion is in the popular mind 
personified as the effort of one individual. 

In every nation or ethnos there is a prevailing opinion as 
to what the highest typical human being should be. This 
" Ideal of Humanity," as it has been called, is more or less 
constantly and consciously pursued, and becomes a spur to 
national action and to a considerable degree an arbiter of 
national destiny. If the ideal is low and bestial, the course 
of that nation is downward, self-destroying ; if it is lofty 
and pure, the energies of the people are directed toward 
the maintenance of those principles which are elevating 
and preservative. These are not mechanical forces, in any 
rational sense of the term ; but they are forces the potent 
directive and formative influence of which cannot be denied 
and must not be underestimated. 

Just in proportion as such ideas are numerous, clear and 
true in the national mind, do their power augment and 
their domain extend ; just so much more quickly and firmly 
do they express themselves, in acts, forms and institutions, 
and thus enable the nation to enrich, beautify and 
strengthen its own existence. We have but to glance 

^ " The historian," sajs Tolstoi, " is obliged to admit an inexplicable 
force, which acts upon his elementary forces." Poiver and Liberty, p^ 
28 (Eng. Trans., New York, 18S8). 



along the nations of the world and to reflect on the outlines 
of their histories, to perceive the correctness of the conclu- 
sion which Prof. Lazarus, perhaps the most eminent ana- 
lyst of ethnic character of this generation, reaches in one 
of his essays: " A people which is not rich in ideas, is 
never rich ; one that is not strong in its thinking powers, 
is never strong,"^ 

I claim, therefore, that the facts of ethnology and the 
study of racial psychology justify me in formulating this 
maxim for the guidance of the historian : The conscious 
and deliberate -piirstiit of ideal aims is the highest causality 
in human history. 

The historian who would fulfil his mission in its amplest 
sense must trace his facts back to the ideas which gave 
them birth ; he must recognize and define these as the 
properdes of specific peoples ; and he must estimate their 
worth by their tendency to national preservation or national 
destruction. 

This is the maxim, the axiom, if 3'ou please, which both 
the ethnologist and the historian must bear ever present in 
mind if they would comprehend the meaning of institu- 
tions or the significance of events. They must be referred 
to, and explained by, the ideas which gave them birth. 
As an American historian has tersely put it, "The facts 
relating to successive phases of human thought constitute 
History." 2 

I am aware that a strong school of modern philosophers 
will present the objecdon that thought itself is but a neces- 
sary result of chemical and mechanical laws, and therefore 
that it cannot be an independent cause. Dr. Post has 
pointedly expressed this posidon in the words: "We do 

1 See his article " Ueber die Ideen in der Gescliichte," in the Zcitschrift 
fur Vdlkerj'sychologie. Bd. III., S. 486. 

2 Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilizatioii and Decay, Preface (Lon- 
don, 1895). This author has reached an advanced position with reference 
to thought and emotion as the impulses of humanity. 



19 

not think ; thinking goes on within us," ^ just as other 
functions, such as circulation and secretion, go on. 

It is not possible for me at this time to enter into this 
branch of the discussion. But I may ask your attention 
to the fact that one of the highest authorities on the laws 
of natural science, the late George J. Romanes, reached 
by the severest induction an exactly opposite opinion, which 
he announced in these words : "The human mind is itself 
a causal agent. Its motives are in large part matters of 
its own creation. * * * Intelligent volition is a true 
cause of adjustive movement."^ 

For myself, after what I have endeavored to make an 
unbiased study of both opinions, I subscribe unhesitatingly 
to the latter, and look upon Mind not only as a potent but 
as an independent cause of motion in the natural world, of 
action in the individual life, and, therefore, of events in the 
history of the species. 

Confining ourselves to ethnology and history, the causa- 
tive idea, as I have said, makes itself felt through ethnic 
ideals. These are influential in proportion as the}^ are 
vividly realized by the national genius ; and elevating in pro- 
portion as they partake of those final truths already referred 
to, which are all merely forms of expression of right rea- 
soning. These ideals are the idola fori, which have some- 
times deluded, sometimes glorified, those who believed in 
them. 

I shall mention a few of them to make my meaning more 
apparent. 

That with which we are most familiar in history is the 
warrior ideal, the personification of military glory and 
martial success. It is present among the rudest tribes, and 

1 Grundriss der ethnologischett Jurisprudenz , Band I., s. 4. 

<^ Mmd and Moii'on, pp. 2g, 1^0, etc. (London, 1895.) Prof. Paulsen 
goes much further, as, "The inner disposition spontaneously determines 
the development of the individual," and "The organism is, as it were, 
congealed voluntary action." — Introduction to Philosophy, pp, 1S7, 190. 



20 

that it is active to-da}', events in recent European history- 
prove only too clearly ; and among ourselves, little would 
be needed to awaken it to vivid life. 

We are less acquainted with religious ideals, as they have 
weakened under the conditions of higher culture. They 
belong in European history more to the medieval than to 
the modern period. Among Mohammedans and Brahmins 
we can still see them in their full vigor. In these lower 
faiths we can still find that intense fanaticism which can 
best be described by the expression of Novalis, "intoxi- 
cated with God," drunk with the divine ;^ and this it is 
which preserves to these nations what power they still re- 
tain. 

Would that I could claim for our own people a grander 
conception of the purpose of life than either of these. But 
alas ! their ideal is too evident to be mistaken. I call it 
the " divitial " ideal, tliat of the rich man, that which makes 
the acquisition of material wealth the one standard of suc- 
cess in life, the only justifiable aim of effort. To most 
American citizens the assertion that there is any more im- 
portant, more sensible purpose than this, is simply incom- 
prehensible or incredible. 

In place of any of these, the man who loves his kind 
would substitute others ; and as these touch closely on the 
business of the ethnologist and the historian when either 
would appl}' the knowledge he has gained to the present 
condition of society, I will briefly refer to some advanced 
by various writers. 

The first and most favorite is that of moral perfection. 
It has been formulated in the expression : "In the prog- 
ress of ethical conceptions lies the progress of history it- 
self." (Schafer.) To such writers the ideal of duty per- 
formed transcends all others, and is complete in itself. The 

'Before him, however, the expression " ebrius Deo" was applied to the 
ancient rhapsodists. 



21 

chief end of man, they say, is to lead the moral life, dili- 
gently to cultivate the ethical perception, the notion of 
" the ought," and to seek in this the finality of his existence.^ 

Keener thinkers have, however, recognized that virtue, 
morality, the ethical evolution, cannot be an end in itself, 
but must be a means to some other end. Effort directed 
toward other, altruism in any form, must have its final 
measurement of value in terms of self ; otherwise the im- 
mutable principles of justice are attacked. I cannot en- 
large upon this point, and wall content myself with a refer- 
ence to Prof. Steinthal's admirable essay on "The Idea of 
ethical Perfection," published some years ago.^ He shows 
that in its last analysis the Good has its value solely in the 
freedom which it confers. Were all men truly ethical, all 
would be perfectly free. Therefore Freedom, in its highest 
sense, according to him and several other accomplished 
reasoners, is the aim of morality, and is that which gives it 
worth. 

This argument seems to me a step ahead, but yet 
to remain incomplete. For after all, what is freedom? It 
means only opportunity, not action ; and opportunity alone 
is a negative quantity, a zero. Opportunity for what, I 
ask? 

For an answer, I turn with satisfaction to an older writer 
on the philosophy of history, one whose genial sympathy 
with the human heart glows on every page of his volumes, 
to Johann Gottfried von Herder.^ The one final aim, he 
tells us, of all institutions, laws, governments and religions, 

'As expressed by Prof. Droysen, in his work, Principles of History, 
(p. i6, New York, 1893), recently translated by President Andrews, of 
Brown University — " Historical things are the perpetual actualization of 
the moral forces." Elsewhere he says — " History is humanity becoming 
conscious concerning itself," There is no objection to such expressions ; 
they are good as far as they go ; but they do not go to the end. 

2 In the Zeitschrift fiir VolJierpsycJiologic, Band XI., Heft II. 

3 Tdeen zur Geschichte der MenscJiheit, B. XV., Cap. I. 



of all efforts and events, is that each person, undisturbed 
by others, may employ his own powers to their fullest ex- 
tent, and thus gain for himself a completer existence, a 
more beautiful enjoyment of his faculties. 

Thus, to the enriching of the individual life, its worth, 
its happiness and its fullness, does all endeavor of human- 
ity tend ; in it, lies the end of all exertion, the reward of all 
toil ; to define it, should be the object of ethnology : and to 
teach it, the purpose of history. 

Let me recapitulate. 

The ethnologist regards each social group as an entity or 
individual, and endeavors to place clearly before his mind 
its similarities and differences with other groups. Taking 
objective facts as his guides, such as laws, arts, institutions 
and lanoruage, he seeks from these to understand the men- 
tal life, the psychical welfare of the people, and beyond 
this to reach the ideals which they cherished and the ideas 
which were the impulses of their activities. Events and 
incidents, such as are recorded in national annals, have for 
him their main, if not only value, as indications of the 
inner or soul life of the people. 

By the comparison of several social groups he reaches 
wider generalizations : and finally to those which charac- 
terize the common consciousness of Humanity, the psy- 
chical universals of the species. By such comparison he 
also ascertains under what conditions and in what direc- 
tions men have progressed most rapidly toward the culti- 
vation and the enjoyment of the noblest elements of their 
nature ; and this strictly inductive knowledge is that alone 
which he would apply to furthering the present needs and 
aspirations of social life. 

This is the method which he would suggest for history 
in the broad meaning of the term. It should be neither a 
mere record of events, nor the demonstration of a thesis, 
but a study, through occurrences and institutions, of the 



23 

mental states of peoples at different epochs, explanatory 
of their success or failure, and practically applicable to 
the present needs of human society. 

Such explanation should be strictly limited in two direc- 
tions. First, by the principle that man can be explained 
only by man, and can be so explained completely. That 
is, no super-human agencies need be invoked to interpret 
any of the incidents of history : and, on the other hand, no 
merely material or mechanical conditions, such as climate, 
food and environment, are sufficient for a full interpreta- 
tion. Beyond these lie the inexhaustible sources of im- 
pulse in the essence of Mind itself. 

Secondly, the past can teach us nothing of the future 
beyond a vague surmise. All theories which proceed on 
an assumption of knowledge concerning finalities, whether 
in science or dogma, are cobwebs of the brain, not the 
fruit of knowledge, and obscure the faculty of intellectual 
perception. It is wasteful of one's time to frame them, and 
fatal to one's work to adopt them. 

These are also two personal traits which, it seems to me, 
are requisite to the comprehension of ethnic psychology, 
and therefore are desirable to both the ethnologist and the 
historian. The one of these is the poetic instinct. 

I fear this does not sound well from the scientific rostrum, 
for the prevailing notion among scientists is that the poet 
is a fabulist, and is therefore as far off as possible from the 
platform they occupy. No one, however, can really un- 
derstand a people who remains outside the pale of the world of 
imagination in which it finds its deepest joys ; and nowhere 
is this depicted so clearly as in its songs and by its bards. 
The ethnologist who has no taste for poetry may gather 
much that is good, but will miss the best ; the historian who 
neglects the poetic literature of a nation turns away his 
eyes from the vista which would give him the farthest 
insight into national character. 



The other trait is more difficult to define. To apprehend 
what is noblest in a nation one must oneself be noble. 
Knowledge of facts and an unbiased judgment need to be 
accompanied by a certain development of personal char- 
acter which enables one to be in sympathy with the finest 
tissue of human nature, from the fibre of which are formed 
heroes and martyrs, patriots and saints, enthusiasts and 
devotees. To appreciate these something of the same 
stuff must be in the mental constitution of the observer. 

Such is the ethnologist's view of history. He does not 
pretend to be either a priest or a prophet. He claims 
neither to possess the final truth nor to foresee it. He is, 
therefore equally unwelcome to the dogmatist, the optim- 
istic naturalist and the speculative philosopher. He refuses 
any explanations which either contradict or transcend 
human reason ; but he insists that human reason is one of 
the causal facts which he has to consider ; and this brings 
him into conflict with both the mystic and the materialist. 

Though he exalts the power of ideas, he is no idealist, 
but practical to the last degree ; for he denies the worth of 
any art, science, event or institution which does not directly 
or indirectly contribute to the elevation of the individual 
man or woman, the common average person, the human 
being. 

To this one end, understanding it as we best can, he 
claims all effort should tend ; and any other view than this 
of the philosophy of history, any other standard of value 
applied to the records of the past, he looks upon as delu- 
sive and deceptive, no matter under what heraldry of title 
or seal of sanctity it is offered. 



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